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The old mode was, you put a + before a required term, and you quoted exact (multi-word) phrases. That worked reasonably well and was easy to understand. A + cou
by cynwoody 13y ago
The old mode was, you put a + before a required term, and you quoted exact (multi-word) phrases. That worked reasonably well and was easy to understand. A + could apply to a single word or to a single phrase, as could a -.
Verbatim was a regression, given it requires you to use the UI instead of typing inline, and it seems to interact with other search options in hard to predict ways.
- thisisnotatest 13y agoPutting an "word" in "quotes" is the inline way of exactly matching an individual word. It's conceptually similar to putting a phrase in "quotation marks," so personally I think it makes sense that we have one operator for literal searches. > A + could apply to a single word or to a single phrase I don't think a + could apply to a phrase. That was one problem with the + operator; it was not clear to users how it actually worked. In fact, though there were many searches whose results were helped by their use of + (many of whom made by users who are commenting here on HN), there were many searches whose results were largely made worse by their use of +, whether it was inadvertent or overzealously applied.
- rhizome 13y agoThat was the AltaVista innovation, and one I'm sure Google is happy to weed out of everybody's minds regardless of the fact that it works and works well.
- cynwoody 13y agoWhen Google first appeared on the scene, I remember being disappointed in its lack of tweaks, compared to AltaVista. However, the quality of Google's results quickly won me over.